SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Just a few minutes before the University of Massachusetts women‘s basketball team began its near-impossible task Sunday against the nation’s seventh-ranked team, a chorus of cheers echoed from one small corner of Notre Dame‘s Purcell Pavilion.

UMass senior center Jasmine Watson, a former high school star in South Bend, had been introduced by the public-address announcer. A group of family and friends were there to cheer her on.

From then on, the Fighting Irish provided the noise. Notre Dame, ranked No. 7 in The Associated Press poll and No. 6 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, cruised to a 94-50 victory over the Minutewomen.

The Irish (2-0), NCAA runners-up last season, will destroy plenty of teams this season. That wasn’t the point of Sunday’s meeting, the first between UMass and Notre Dame since the Women’s National Invitation Tournament in 1995. This game had been set up specifically as a homecoming for Watson, something that UMass coach Sharon Dawley said had been in the works for a couple of years.

Among the Irish players Watson faced was Skylar Diggins, a five-time gold medalist with various USA Basketball teams and a former teammate of Watson at South Bend Washington High School. Watson played her high school ball for three years in nearby Elkhart before transferring to Washington her senior year.

“It was a big game for me,” said Watson, noting that she tried to treat this game no more importantly than any other one. “But I’m definitely appreciative of being able to play in front of my parents and for a lot of people in my family to be able to see me play.”

“It was good seeing her,” said Diggins, who scored 15 points and had a game-high seven assists.

Watson grabbed eight rebounds, tying Notre Dame’s Natalie Achonwa, a 2012 Olympian with the Canadian National Team, for game-high honors. However, Watson was held to a season-low eight points as the Irish turned their home opener into a track meet featuring 49 points off 34 UMass turnovers. Watson was one of four UMass players with eight points.

“I was rushing it,” Watson said. “I feel like I just didn’t play my game. I wasn’t dominating like how I usually do.”

Kayla McBride, a junior guard, scored 18 points, leading four Notre Dame players in double figures. The Minutemen led just once, 3-2, after Montgomery hit a 3-pointer in the game’s first minute. The game slipped away soon after that, but the real killer was a 17-0 Notre Dame run in the first half.

“We came here to bring Jas home and I think everyone just got too caught up in the emotional side, where we’re playing, who we’re playing, how good they are, playing in front of a lot of family and friends," Dawley said. "We had a lot of families here because we have a lot of Midwest kids.”